Humidity Helping Crews Battling CA Inferno

Aug. 27 -- Crews announced progress in fighting the Mendocino Complex Fire, the largest wildfire in state history, as increasingly humid weather conditions allowed crews to create a backfire in an effort to contain the active fire in the Mendocino Complex’s northeastern section.

“The last three to four days have been very favorable for firefighters,” said Capt. Cary Wright, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s public information officer for the Mendocino Complex. Humidity levels have been up, creating what firefighters call good overnight recovery, which provided the distance to set a backfire ahead of the main fire heading northeast, said Wright.

“It’s less likely to have spot fires when that relative humidity goes up. Two weeks ago we were seeing embers being thrown a mile out,” he added.

Monday marks one month since the start of the Mendocino Complex Fire, which has spread over parts of Mendocino, Lake, Colusa and Glenn counties and is made up of two parts: the River Fire north of Hopland, which is completely contained, and the much larger Ranch Fire northeast of Ukiah, which is 67 percent contained.

The level of containment has stayed the same for several days, yet Wright said that’s a bit misleading because the fire actually increased by more than 24,000 acres between Saturday morning and Sunday evening, most of it from the backfire, bringing the total to a massive 450,985 acres. Depending on weather conditions, it will likely take four to five days for the backfire and main fire to join, he said. Cal Fire expects full containment by Saturday.

“The focus today and probably the next couple of days is to get in there and mop up all the hot spots,” Dennis Burns, fire behavior specialist for Cal Fire, said in a video update Sunday.

In the less active part of the fire zone, some of the 3,114 firefighters in the fire area were able to bring in heavy equipment to repair fire lines and cut down hazardous trees over the weekend.

The cause of the Mendocino Complex Fire, which has resulted in the death of one firefighter and three firefighter injuries, is still unknown.

A new fire sprang up in Lake County on Sunday afternoon just south of the Mendocino Complex, Cal Fire reported. The Cache Fire grew to 120 acres by evening and was located in Clearlake Oaks at Highway 20 and New Long Valley Road. Late Sunday night, it was burning 105 acres and was 20 percent contained.

Cal Fire crews also took part in fighting a grass fire on the eastern edge of Castro Valley Sunday afternoon that engulfed motorists on nearby Highway 580 in thick white smoke. Quickly contained to 48 acres, the fire near Palo Verde Road turned the hillside from gold to charcoal black.

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